


you choose in your hungover state to assess your life

by ohtempora



Category: Brunch (Podcast) RPF, Brunch - Bean & Blackburn (Podcast)
Genre: Best Friends, Curses, Developing Relationship, M/M, Sharing a Bed, Whiteclaw - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-18
Updated: 2019-12-18
Packaged: 2021-02-26 01:12:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,057
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21844132
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ohtempora/pseuds/ohtempora
Summary: DJ: Honestly, if whoever cursed us is listening to this—PETE: Because it’s gotta be someone on Twitter, like, who else would even curse us—DJ: You owe us a case of beer. Or spiked seltzer, but none of the bad flavors. You have to drink all the pineapple, and then you give us the seltzer. And lift the curse.
Relationships: DJ Bean/Pete Blackburn
Comments: 6
Kudos: 29
Collections: Yuletide 2019





	you choose in your hungover state to assess your life

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ionthesparrow](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ionthesparrow/gifts).

> happy yuletide, ionthesparrow!!
> 
> many thanks to s. for beta-work and brainstorming, and m. for WILDLY last minute betaing, a true hero and friend. title from the brunch ooc twitter account. dj likes pete but pete loves dj forever.

Pete wakes up and DJ is standing right at his front door.

That sounds like the beginning of a song, of course; some song he’d make fun of online. Cheesy over-engineered pop music. Or worse, new Taylor Swift lyrics. Fire off a mean tweet at the cliche of it all. But no, it’s Deej, and it’s five in the morning, literal hours before his alarm is supposed to go off, and Pete doesn’t know what woke him, let alone what made him know that DJ was there. Let alone what made him walk as if through honey, sleep-dazed and certain that what he needed to do was let DJ in.

He opens the door. He lets DJ in. 

“Good...morning?” DJ says. His hair is flat on one side, like he was sleeping on it, and he’s wearing joggers and a hoodie that’s ancient and fraying. 

Pete says, “Morning, dude.” He looks down at his wrist but there’s no watch there. Because it’s five fucking am. “You know what time it is?”

“No.” DJ blinks, slow. “But I...had to be here. I couldn’t not be here. I don’t— do you know what I mean?”

Pete starts to say no, except he can’t. DJ is walking towards the living room, kicking off the boots he’d clearly just jammed on his feet. They’re caked with snow, and Pete wants to stop and line them up neatly by the door. He can’t. He’s following DJ to the couch. He’s sitting next to DJ on the couch. He wants to be with DJ, like there’s a fish hook in his gut and it’s yanking him forward, inexorable, uncompromising. 

He says, “Huh,” and yawns so wide his jaw cracks. 

-

DJ: I know I’ve said it before, and again, not to get too weird, but I hate existing, period. 

[“Brunch! Hit it, boys!”]

[Jazzy music interlude.]

[Jazzy music intensifies.]

DJ: So, as it turns out—

PETE: We’re literally fucking cursed right now.

DJ: I know what you’re thinking. Like, you guys, you aren’t the 1918 Red Sox. Which is good, because that lasted for 108 years, and this guy needs to go back to his own apartment eventually.

PETE: Yeah, so, it’s not a sports curse, thank God, go Bruins. More like a... proximity curse? Which is like — we can’t be more than six feet away from each other. Which sucks. Which is obviously why we’re doing a podcast right now, since it’s not like we can do our jobs or go to a bar.

DJ: We could go to a house party.

PETE: We could probably go to a house party. 

DJ: But we couldn’t be pong opponents unless it wasn’t a regulation size table. Or even teammates. 

PETE: Right. 

DJ: Honestly, if whoever cursed us is listening to this—

PETE: Because it’s gotta be someone on Twitter, like, who else would even curse us - 

DJ: You owe us a case of beer. Or spiked seltzer, but none of the bad flavors. You have to drink all the pineapple, and then you give us the seltzer. And lift the curse.

PETE: And lift the curse! 

BOTH [staggered unison]: Lift the curse!

DJ: Okay, okay. So because we’ve been stuck in Pete's apartment for, uh, 33 hours? Yeah, 33 hours. We watched some movies about curses. For ideas on how to break them, but also because we were bored and like, drinking, hanging out, didn’t wanna watch, you know, the sports.

PETE: Honestly, we kept accidentally hitting each other watching sports. So we had to stop.

DJ: Yeah. Actually. And then we couldn’t move to opposite sides of the couch. Whole big thing. 

PETE: You haven’t lived until you’ve had to shuffle in tandem, four feet apart, to get your food delivery. 

DJ: Like really terrible synchronized swimmers on land.

-

They go back to sleep, first of all. DJ offers to crash on the couch until it’s a reasonable hour to discuss, uh,  _ whatever the fuck is going on _ , and Pete’s about to grab a blanket from the hall closet to throw at him, except DJ is standing right beside him.

“I gotta,” DJ says, an answer to Pete’s unspoken question. “I can’t be further away from you.”

“You can sleep in my bed,” Pete says, then, after a long moment and another jaw-cracking yawn. They’ve done that before, usually when they’re both wasted and the couch seems far away as fuck. It’s fine, they can do it under weirder circumstances too. 

“Yeah, alright,” DJ says, and he basically collapses facedown into a pillow once they make it to the bedroom. Pete manages to get the comforter over most of him, and then he does the same, throwing an arm over his face to block out the weak winter-morning sun. 

They wake up when it’s fully past 9 AM, sleeping through all alarms. Pete turns off his, from where it’s beeping angrily at him, and sits up.

“So,” he says. “You’re here.”

“Appear to be, yep.”

“And you can't … not be here.”

“I tried.”

“Fuck,” Pete says, starting suddenly. “I gotta take the dog out.”

“I’m coming with,” DJ says. He pushes himself up too. “Oh, this is going to go great.”

They take the dog out. It’s fucking freezing. The dog is, inevitably, very confused about the entire situation. “Me too, buddy,” Pete mutters to him. DJ’s standing a respectful few feet away, but, well. Apparently there’s only so much they can do.

“This is weird,” DJ says, finally. They’re still both staring at the dog.

“Gotta be worse for him,” Pete says. He gestures down. “No privacy. None. Usually it’s only me staring at him. Awkward, you know?”

“That’s not what I mean, come on.” 

Pete blows out some air. “I know,” he says. “It’s really goddamn weird.”

DJ says, “Yeah,” and he says, “yeah, dude,” and he looks back at the dog before he says anything else. “I guess I should. I don’t know what I should do.”

“Try walking away again,” Pete suggests. DJ does so, and there’s a moment where it looks like whatever force field is surrounding them will snap, that this can all be chalked up to a weird, bad dream, until DJ stops and shakes his head. 

Pete says, “Mother of fuck, man,” and the dog pees all over the sidewalk. 

-

DJ: You know, there are some pretty famous curse movies.

PETE: Yeah?

DJ: Yeah.  _ Freaky Friday. _

PETE: Oh shit, true. A Lindsey Lohan classic. We could be bodyswapped! Can you imagine? Wait, who’s the Jamie Lee Curtis in this scenario?

DJ: I think I’m the Jamie Lee Curtis. It feels, like, abundantly clear to me that I’m Jamie Lee Curtis. 

PETE: Gotta give that one to you, even though I’d totally be married to Mark Harmon. However, let’s be clear for our listeners, there is no Freaky Friday-ing happening here. If that happened you’d be able to hear the screaming down in Quincy.

DJ: Now that you mention it, shouldn’t there have been more screaming?

PETE: I mean. I guess? Instead we’re chilling at my apartment.

DJ: If you hear screaming, please at us on Twitter.

-

“We should stay at mine as long as this lasts,” Pete says. “My dog’s already stressed out enough from this morning.”

DJ looks like he’s about to argue, but - Pete has a point, and knows it. 

“I need, like, clothes and my laptop and shit.” DJ’s turn to have a point. They drive to his place so he can pack a bag, radio on, listening to the regular Boston sports radio assholes dissect why the Bruins have been losing lately. “This is depressing,” DJ says, and doesn’t make a move to turn it off. 

At DJ’s apartment, he throws a punch of clothes into a duffel while Pete follows him around, keeping just far away, keeping too close. He grabs chargers, his work laptop, a couple cables Pete isn’t sure the purpose of.

“You can use my shampoo and whatever,” Pete says, when they go into the bathroom so DJ can get his toothbrush. “I have a ton of stuff in the hall closet, I’m sure I’ve got anything you forget.”

“Okay.” DJ stuffs his razor down the side of the bag. “That aside, am I missing anything important?”

“No. We should probably hit up the grocery store, though, I don’t think I have enough food for the two of us to last more than a day.”

“This weekend is gonna be entirely survived by us eating takeout, don’t lie.” DJ grabs a couple things of the medicine cabinet and zips his bag. 

“Also, the liquor store,” Pete concedes.

“Yeah.” The corner of DJ’s mouth quirks up. “That sounds more like it.” 

-

PETE: More curse movies. Hmm. Okay. No, I feel like, the hard thing is more curse movies that are applicable to our exact situation. 

DJ: Oh yeah, no. Like movies about ancient curses in tombs is not relevant to our situation.

PETE: Right.

DJ: I mean, I hope so. Unless you were doing something sketch in a graveyard recently.

PETE: Oh my god, no. I swear I wasn’t. Can you imagine, though? This is the result of one of us, like, tripping over the grave of some Revolutionary War solider, and now we’re being cursed by the ghosts of the Continental Army? 

DJ: I don’t remember AP US History well enough, I hope it isn’t that. 

PETE: Stay out of graveyards, kids. You might get cursed.

DJ: That does make me think about classic Disney movies and curses. Like,  _ Ariel _ , right?  _ Sleeping Beauty? _

PETE: That’s a good point. Serious question time. Deej, have you or have you not recently pissed off a witch? Could be a sea witch or an old crone if we're sticking with the Disney theme. 

DJ: You know, I can't say that I have. Have you?

PETE: Aside from all the people I flipped off driving in the past few weeks, so. And they were all eating my dust, so it’s highly unlikely any of them got a read on me, even if they were a witch. 

DJ: We’re dropping PSAs all over the place in this curse podcast. Stay out of graveyards, don’t piss off people who might be witches, drive safer than Pete. 

-

"The amazing thing," DJ says. "Is how I never realized the amount of beauty products you had until I had to watch you put them on your face over the course of a full day. I have spent so much time standing near you while you stare at yourself, okay."

"Moisturizer is simply a smart decision," Pete says. He's standing in the bathroom, about five and a half feet away from DJ, squinting into his mirror. It's hour 36. They've recorded what technically can be called a podcast. They've ordered dinner. They ate dinner. They tried to watch whatever Bruins game NESN is replaying and stopped paying attention somewhere in the second period. They're going to have to sleep next to each other again, which was fine before, and should be fine tonight, until Pete thinks about how twice feels like they're making it a habit, and three times  _ definitely  _ would be. 

"Night cream," DJ says, squinting at the bottle.

"You're welcome to borrow some, dude." 

“I already had to watch you do pullups in your kitchen this morning. I think you’re asking too much of me.”

“It's why you don't get carded at bars and I do. What more can I say? Nothing. Absolutely nothing.”

“I’m not sure you should be proud of that.” DJ hip-checks Pete out of the way at the sink and splashes some water on his face. Pete does a bad job of hiding his wince, judging by the eyebrow DJ raises at him as he towels his face dry. 

They survived today. Pete supposes that counts for something, if whoever cursed them is watching, or cares; if this is legitimately some weird revenge plot or the strangest bad luck he’s ever had. 

When they get into bed together, DJ says goodnight, and Pete turns off the light, and they fall asleep like they’ve done this a thousand times before. Listening to DJ’s quiet breaths in and out, Pete’s last thought before passing out is that if this is going to be a habit, well, it could be a lot worse.

-

DJ: Hello, and welcome to Curse Podcast 2: Electric Boogaloo! 

PETE: One could say that curse podcasts are in danger of becoming overplayed, Deej.

DJ: One could say that. One could say that. And to that, I would say — you know how people tweet through it? We are podcasting through it. Also, because, specifically on Twitter, people told us how to break a curse, and I kind of want to read those aloud.

PETE: Is this why you were throwing salt everywhere this morning.

DJ: Yeah.

PETE: I guess it's a classic for a reason.

DJ: If it had worked maybe Morton would give us an ad buy.

PETE: Can you imagine? 'Morton Salt. Multipurpose. Breaks curses and makes your food more delicious.' No, that was really bad, I don't think I can write salt ads. They have the market cornered anyway, except for that fancy salt people give as office Secret Santa presents when they can’t think of anything else to buy. 

DJ: The pink salt in the special grinder? I think I got that for my parents one year. They  _ definitely  _ have not used it. 

-

“How many movies do you think we can watch while we’re stuck here?” DJ asks. “Turn the curse into a productive curse.”

“Are you going to rewatch Marriage Story and tear up again?” Pete asks. “Because there’s the chance to do a whole Adam Driver retrospective. I bet there’s a big audience for that.”

“I don’t wanna watch Star Wars right now. I meant, like —never mind.” DJ stands up and goes into the kitchen. He makes it a step, then another step, before Pete feels it: the weird pull, somewhere behind his ribs, making it so he  _ has  _ to get up and follow. 

He wonders, if he braced himself against something, and pulled back — would the curse finally snap? Would it hurt? Or is it inextricable, whatever is linking him to DJ right now, no fucking escape. 

Pete goes into the kitchen. It’s been too many hours for this to be funny. If he was stuck with not-DJ, one of his other bros, maybe they’d just agree to ignore each other. 

DJ’s back is to him, but it looks like he’s getting his laptop out of the bag he left on the table. “I have to do at least a little work,” he says by way of explanation. “Not that I’m not down to watch movies later, but there’s some stuff I gotta do first.”

Pete nods. “Yeah,” he says. No point in saying anything else. “Uh— my computer is in the bedroom, can you come with for a sec?”

They traipse into the bedroom like that so Pete can get his fucking computer, then settle down in the living room to work. It eases it, the thread of tension fluttering between them; this is something they’ve done before, worked on a column or editing or social media bullshit. It’s a few hours before DJ looks up, his face more relaxed. 

“Better?” Pete asks, and DJ nods. “Okay,” Pete says. “Good.” He didn’t realize it, but his shoulders relax too. 

-

DJ: How to break a curse: Twitter edition!

PETE: It’s weird that we’re doing this. You didn’t like it when we read all those text messages about the podcast.

DJ: Yeah, because they were all about me. A lot of the suggestions here are about you.

PETE: So that makes it better?

DJ: Apparently! Okay. Alright. First off— okay, this is a suggestion from the  _ Sims 4 _ , I think. This is not a real curse-breaking suggestion. It says we should drink the Potion of Curse Cleansing. The person who suggested this gave us, like, a screenshot of their Sim drinking the potion.

PETE: What’s the real world version of that? The King’s Cup if you’re playing Kings? Tummy Tea on Instagram?

DJ: Put that one in the trash with all the salt we had to sweep up, and Google telling us how to break curses in the name of Christ.

PETE: I really think a Habs fan did this. I piss off a lot of people online. There’s someone out there who’s like, listening to the first curse podcast we did, all happy and cloaked in black magic shit. They’re probably listening to Billie Eilish. 

DJ: You think we got cursed by a teenage girl who’s really into spiders?

PETE: Okay, when you put it like that— okay, no. And didn’t we agree Billie Eilish is like 40 on a previous podcast?

DJ: We did. But I’m convinced her fans are teens who are really into spiders, so if a Billie Eilish fan was cursing us, that’s who it would be.

PETE: I mean, when you put it like that, it’s possible. Okay. Next tweet!

DJ: Next tweet! They think we should— this is another potion curse fixing suggestion, but the base of the potion seems to be Whiteclaw.

PETE: I trust this one inherently more than the Sims one.

DJ: There’s some Claws in the fridge.

PETE: I saw. But we’d both have to go, and we’d have to both take the headphones off, because of the thing, so let’s just get them after.

DJ: The fridge is more than six feet away. Right. You’re right. 

PETE: Next tweet!

-

They play around with the curse, testing its boundaries again, like maybe it went away out of goodwill. Or whoever cursed them was listening to their first podcast and felt really bad. It’s almost the holidays; Pete figures anything is possible.

He makes it six feet, and then that pull again, that fish hook in his gut. He goes back to DJ.

“Do you think this is supposed to drive us insane?” DJ asks. He’s started chewing on his lip, watching Pete take careful steps father and farther away, until he fails. 

“Maybe?” Pete says. It’d make sense. Spend every waking moment with someone until you both snap. “But anyone who listens to Brunch knows we like each other. Anyone on Twitter, honestly. If they wanted to do that they’d find like, one of our online nemeses.”

“Yeah.” DJ sits down on the couch. They’ve spent a lot of time on the couch. Pete  _ definitely  _ misses going to the gym. The most he’s done to work out is some free weights from the set he has lying around while DJ stood there and pretended to judge his form.

Honestly, it was pretty funny, but leg day is important. 

“Unless you’re being driven insane and you won’t tell me.”

“I’d probably just punch you if that was happening, honestly.” DJ sticks his phone in his pocket. 

Pete nods. “Fair.” 

DJ shrugs at him, and they sit in silence for a while before DJ says, “Wanna take the dog for a walk? I don’t know how long I can sit here without going stir-crazy, like, knowing that’s my only choice.”

They take the dog for a walk. DJ’s pretty silent, though he occasionally talks to the dog, pointing out a stick or some snow. Boston is quiet right now, the sun reflecting off the windows, and Pete squints against the glare and steps over a patch of ice. 

“I wish I know who did this,” DJ says finally. “Like, if there’s something I have to apologize for.”

“Like if we deserve this?”

“I guess, yeah.” 

“It can’t be easy,” Pete says. “Cursing people. I don’t think this is something that comes up on the first page when you do a Google search.”

“Nah, probably not.”

They turn around to head back to Pete’s. The sun is getting lower in the sky, the light that late-afternoon winter pale. Pete yanks his hat down further on his head, his breath causing small puffs in the air.

-

DJ: FYI, I feel like the listeners need to know that you listened to Haim for two hours this morning.

PETE: I’m happy for the listeners to know that. At this point, there are so many more embarrassing songs you could share from my Spotify playlist that Haim is like, expected by anyone who’s listened to more than one episode.

DJ: For the record, of that two hours, one hour he was listening to “Kept Me Crying” on repeat.

PETE: Bro.

-

They decide, with an air of magnanimity, to get drunk.

Specifically, they decide to get drunk on Whiteclaw, because the company sent Pete a bunch of free shit, and it feels exceedingly on brand for the current situation. He puts another one of those bad Netflix holiday movies on, because they’ll need more relevant content for the podcast, and sometimes it’s just easier to make fun of a film. 

“Ain’t no curses when you’re drinking Claws?” DJ says. He cracks open a can. “Doesn’t rhyme. Needs work.”

“Laws,” Pete says. “Obviously. Uhh, flaws. Draws. Guffaws?”

“Cursed guffaws when you’re drinking Claws?”

“For that I feel like you have to chug it,” Pete says, and DJ raises the can to him, cheers, and then does so, wiping his chin when he’s done. 

“Seriously, the lime isn’t bad.”

Pete grabs a black cherry one for himself and stretches out on the couch, sticking his feet in DJ’s lap. He scrolls through Twitter, but there’s nothing out of the ordinary there. Checks his text messages, and — shit.

“You’re making a face,” DJ says.

Pete gulps down some more Whiteclaw. “Accidentally ghosted someone, and uh, didn’t mean to.”

“Oh, shit.” DJ is working on his second can, and Pete drinks faster, tries to catch up. “Because of the curse?”

“Yeah.” It’s fine, honestly, and Pete says so. “I’ll figure it out later.” He tosses his phone to the side. “Is there a drinking game we can play with both of us stuck here?”

“Kings sucks with two people,” DJ says. “Quarters?”

“Worth a shot.”

They play quarters for a while, drinking steadily. It’s snowing again outside, light flurries, the kind that won’t stick. Pete’s definitely buzzed when they come to a stop, honestly closer to wasted than he should be. “You hungry?” he asks.

“I could eat.”

They order food and drink some more, until they’re definitely wasted, the world fuzzing around the edges. Pete curls up on the couch and looks through his phone again. It’s a bad time to text the guy he was going to see, and what would he say, if anything?  _ Sorry I forgot to text you, me and my best buddy are cursed to stay within six feet of each other, and I didn’t want to third wheel our first date. You can hear all about it on my podcast _ . Fuck no.

“Hey, Pete,” DJ says, and Pete looks up. DJ’s voice is too careful, too purposely steady, considering the steadily-accumulating pile of cans on the coffee table. “Who’s Ben?”

“Oh,” Pete says. “The, uh. Person I accidentally ghosted.”

“Right.” DJ says. “Can I, uh. Ask. Cause Ben is like—”

“A guy from Hinge, yeah. It wasn’t going to be a date,” Pete says. His mouth feels like it’s moving too slowly, but the words are coming out too fast. “Like, a drinks thing, maybe. I don’t know. I kind of ditched and I don’t know how to explain it to him, so.”

“The last few days are definitely hard to explain.” DJ’s pausing a lot around his words, and Pete doesn’t know if that’s good or bad. 

He opens another drink, hands ones to DJ, keeps it silent as long as he’ll need to keep it silent.

Eventually, after what feels like an hour but definitely isn’t: "I just— I guess I thought you'd tell me," DJ says. 

It's been silent in the room for so long, Pete realizes. They've been staring at the muted television, long since switched to ESPN. He can hear the sound of the heat whirring in the background, but that's it. 

“I guess—” Pete reaches for his beer and chugs some, needing something to do with his hands. “I didn't think you knew that I was into dudes too, I just— don't know.”

“That makes sense,” DJ says; the whole thing is that it doesn't, unless you're the kind of friends they are, have spent as much time together as they have. Have spent days together, linked together, unable to be more than six feet apart. 

“Sorry,” Pete says. It's inadequate.

DJ huff-laughs at him. “Dude, I don't know what you're apologizing for.” 

“You should have found out because I was like, making out with some ripped dude in Provincetown while drinking a cocktail. Not because we're cursed to stick together and you saw shit on my phone.”

“That’s fair.”

Another long pause. The TV is playing some infomercial Pete would love to make fun of. 

“We’re not talking about this on the podcast,” Pete says.

“Jesus Christ, no.”

“I really don’t—” Pete sighs. “I wanna get some water, you want some water?” 

“Probably a good idea.” They get up and DJ hugs him, abrupt, before darting ahead as far as he can to grab mugs and the Brita filter. He hands Pete his cup and their hands brush. 

“You know, we don’t have shit to do tomorrow either,” Pete says. “We can drink this and get more drunk and not talk about anything if you don’t want.”

“It’s what you want, dude,” DJ says. “But yeah, that sounds good.”

-

It’s been four days. 96 hours. Pete doesn’t know if counting in terms of hours makes it go faster or not. He woke up curled against DJ, who was snoring with his mouth wide open, and didn’t hate it. They brushed their teeth standing shoulder to shoulder and he didn’t hate that either.

When the curse breaks — if the curse breaks — he can’t think like that, it’s gotta be when. When the curse breaks, DJ is going to flee for his apartment and soak in all the personal space they’ve been missing for the past four days. And Pete will be here, won’t know if it’s okay to feel lonely or okay to not be, if he’s missing out on some sort of relief. 

It’s super fucking weird how easy it was for them to fall into a routine. 

Pete texts Ben a sorry and a cancellation, because DJ tells him not to be a dick, and that’s fine and he's right. They don’t say anything beyond that, but maybe they don’t need to, and that’s fine too. 

-

DJ: Do you ever listen to us podcast when we’re podcasting and think that you’re sick of the sounds of our voices?

PETE: No, not really. I usually think we have very melodious voices, and I’m glad the listeners haven’t gotten sick of them yet. 

DJ: It’s been four days, that’s all. 

PETE: Dude, if I was going to get sick of your — again, melodious— voice, I wouldn’t have signed onto a podcast with you.

DJ: Okay, yeah, that’s fair.

PETE: I’m sure the listeners love the sound of our voices. Please do not tweet about it, though. I already made it weird enough with the ‘reading your texts about Deej’ thing, and the, uh, you know.

DJ: The break the curse thing we did yesterday.

PETE: Note for the listeners, we’re saving that for a future podcast, because right now curse podcasts are overplayed and maybe not helping our cause. We are still stuck together but this is a regular episode of Brunch. 

DJ: Right. Uh, yeah. Alright. So, I watched this really terrible Netflix Christmas movie while you were napping earlier?

PETE: Oh, that’s the content we need right now. Please, please tell me all about it. 

DJ: Okay. So. It was called  _ Christmas Wedding Planner _ , and it was  _ so bad. _

-

“I can’t believe I now know your entire bedtime skincare routine,” DJ says. “I know too much. I cannot believe your moisturizer bills. I am both impressed and scared, bud.”

Just to be a dick, Pete offers him the jar of night cream with a dramatic flourish. DJ laughs and pushes it away.

They get in bed, each of them on their own side of the bed. DJ sticks his cold feet under Pete’s calves to be a dick, and Pete makes a very manly sound that isn’t a screech and pushes him as far away as the curse will let them. DJ’s laughing at him, but it’s warm, and Pete turns over with an overdramatic huff. 

“Good night, you jackass,” DJ says, over Pete’s sputtering of “ _ I’m  _ the jackass?” and soon enough he’s snoring, lightly enough that it isn’t annoying. Pete closes his eyes. 

It’s hard to fall asleep. There’s too much light coming in through the cracks in the blinds, maybe, or the buzz of the heat coming on is startlingly loud. Pete turns over a couple of times, shoves his arms under the pillow, then picks up the pillow and jams it over his face.

DJ is so warm next to him, and Pete’s not cold exactly, but he wants to curl up into DJ’s side, maybe retort with a joke about short kings if DJ says anything about big spoons and little spoons, which Pete isn’t sure if he would, but it’s good to be prepared.

He’d get up and pace, get up and do fucking anything, but if he takes a step too far DJ will be jolted awake by the weird-ass bond that’s still between them, and Pete doesn’t need that right now. He’d blurt it out, inelegant as “I want to fucking cuddle,” and there’s nothing for that, there really isn’t. 

Squeezing his eyes shut doesn’t help much of anything, but eventually he tricks himself into falling asleep.

When he wakes up, DJ is in the bathroom and Pete’s in a lump under the covers, and there’s nothing holding them together anymore, the hook in his stomach suddenly — gone.

“Oh,” Pete says. “Oh my god. Deej.”

DJ’s got toothpaste all over his face. “Yeah?”

“Dude, you’re more than six feet from me.  _ Deej _ .”

DJ’s toothbrush falls straight out of his mouth and onto the carpet. Pete’s too stunned to be grossed out. 

-

DJ: We have an update!

PETE: It’s not about sports! Or movies!

DJ: That’s right, not about sports or movies! We would like to inform all the loyal Brunch listeners, that your hosts, the bad boys of podcasting, have been freed from our weird-ass curse.

PETE: If you’re the Habs fan who cursed us and you’re listening, thank you. And no thank you for doing this in the first place. Please don’t do it again.

DJ [dramatically]: Curses: please don’t try this at home.

PETE: You use that tone of voice for the ad buys, bud, and we’re golden.

DJ: I will not be doing that. 

PETE: But imagine if you did.

DJ: Not a fucking chance.

-

DJ goes home, which Pete expected. There’s probably food to throw out of his fridge, since he was trapped at Pete’s, and shoveling to be done. It snowed again last night. They said their goodbyes, and bro-hugged, and DJ spent some time saying goodbye to Pete’s dog before he headed out, both of them gloriously free from each other. 

His apartment feels big, and empty, which Pete figured might happen. He didn’t expect how he’d miss the pull behind his ribs, the goddamned mystical link between them. 

He shouldn’t go over to DJ’s. They both deserve space right now. Except it feels like something is missing, something that’s a part of him— a space on the couch for DJ that should be taken up, someone making jokes while he rinses off face wash and puts all his retinol shit on his face. Someone taking up space on the other side of the mattress. He lets the dog sleep in the bed with him because it’s weirdly lonely, no one else breathing besides him way too loud. 

They’ll have shit to do later in the week, they’ve gotta be horrified by  _ Cats  _ together, and catch up on the Pats, and maybe rewatch some reality TV when things die down. Pete wakes up and makes breakfast by himself, goes out to get a latte without DJ traipsing alongside him. He catches up on some of the work he missed while they were cursed. And then he sits on the couch for a while, thinking, alone in the quiet of his apartment.

He gets up, and gets in his car, and drives across town.

DJ answers the door on the first knock. 

“Hi,” Pete says. DJ’s face is creasing with worry. “This isn’t a curse thing. No curses redux. I swear.”

“Well, that’s good,” DJ says. He bounces up and down on the balls of his feet a couple times, and Pete blinks and stares, because that’s something he does when he’s nervous. DJ must have picked it up. They’ve spent a lot of time together but he guesses he never thought it was the kind of time where you pick up someone else’s nervous tics. 

“Look,” Pete says. “I’m just gonna say it, okay, what the fuck ever.”

“You could come inside first.” DJ shrugs, but there’s color high on his cheeks. “It’s freezing and about to start sleeting, come on.”

Pete goes inside, wipes salt and slush off his shoes, lets DJ take his coat. Tries not to lose his nerve. 

It’s hard not to lose his nerve.

“Okay,” Pete says, once they’re inside and DJ’s making tea like a nerd to warm them both up. “Here’s the thing. I was alone last night for the first time in like, five days, and I kept thinking about how at this point I should hate you. Like, it was so much time together, Deej. It was literally nonstop.”

“But,” DJ says.

“I don’t hate you,” Pete says. “Wait, dude, no, that came out totally fucking wrong. I mean, it feels weird without you being there on the couch next to me, letting me stick my feet in your lap and whatever. 

“So what does that mean,” DJ says, and his voice is careful again, exactly like it was when they were drinking and he found out.

“I don’t know,” Pete says. “I honestly don’t. And we don’t know who did this to us or if we’re supposed to fuckin’ learn from it or anything, which I personally would like to find out, so we can threaten to beat them up.”

“Just threaten?”

“I’m only making threats I know I can back up right now, that’s as far as I got. That’s not the point. The point is that I want to stay here, with you, and I don’t know anything after that, really, I don’t know how else to say it. But it’s what I realized.”

The kettle whistles, which means DJ doesn’t have to look at him while he turns off the burner and gets out mugs. Pete can’t tell if that’s good or not. 

“So what do you  _ want _ ,” DJ says. His shoulders are tight and hunched, and all Pete wants is to put his hand between DJ’s shoulder blades and watch the tension drain out.

“To hang out with you,” Pete says. “I mean. That would be enough. I’m not saying we move in together immediately, but. I missed your cold fucking feet and you mocking me about my skincare routine.”

“So you mean, like.” DJ bites into his lip. “Hanging out permanently, basically. That’s what on the table.”

“It’s what’s on the table, but it’s, it’s anything you’re comfortable with, anything you’d want, that’s what I want, I swear.” He’s been babbling since he walked in, it feels like, and that’s not who he is. Pete knows he’s gotta get it all out now, before they get paralyzed, stuck back apart. “Deej — please.”

DJ breathes in, and out. His fingers are white where they’re clenched around the handle of his mug. And then he makes a decision, Pete can see it flash across his face, and he holds out his hand.

“Okay,” he says, mouth open, lips parted, and Pete leans in. 


End file.
